Snowstorms: 1, Princesses: 0

by Mom101 on 11.13.13
in funny to me at least, media, my girls

paparazzi statue“NO Mom,” Sage corrected me. “Kate was a regular person first and then she married Prince William and then she became a princess. She wasn’t Princess Kate first.”

She got me on semantics. Darn precocious six year-old.

“She is soooo lucky,” Thalia added.

“Well,” I explained, “Princesses aren’t always that lucky. It can be really difficult in a lot of ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re a famous person, a celebrity, people want to know every little thing about your life. You have no privacy. You walk out your door just to go take a walk and there are 50 guys with cameras trying to get a picture of you looking bad so they can sell it to a magazine. Every Tabloid newspaper writes stories about her talking about whether she looks good, or how much weight she gained when she was pregnant, or whether they think she is nice or not.”

My kids were confounded. “But why would they want to do that?”

I thought about the pitch I got just this morning, that read: Embarrassing alert! Kate Middleton was caught yesterday in public sporting an uncovered head of gray roots. You have to wonder where her colorist was!

I actually didn’t wonder where her colorist was. Nor did I know she had grey roots or was supposed to be embarrassed by that. Silly me.

“It’s all about selling more newspapers,”  I told my girls, “or selling products or getting more people to watch TV shows. Think about it: The TV show announcer says COMING UP NEXT, A REALLLLLY HORRIBLE THING THAT PRINCESS KATE DID! TUNE IN TO SEE MORE! Or… COMING UP NEXT, THE WEATHER FORECAST.”

There was a long pause. Very long. My girls looked at each other. Then back at me.

“We’d rather watch the Weather Channel.”

{15 Comments}

15 thoughts on “Snowstorms: 1, Princesses: 0”

  3. When my kids were your kids ages we lived in London, were watching Cartoon Network and up flashed the headline that Diana had died. Their view of monarchy (which as British Subjects they were well versed in) was forever changed and they never again thought Royals were so lucky.

    And for NY kids, in fall/winter with the ever present threat of a snow day…what could be better than the Weather Channel!

    1. Oof, I can only imagine.

      They get the Weather Channel love from their Papa. It’s all my stepfather watches.

  4. Sometimes I think we should just try putting a bunch of kids in charge of the world for a month. All the stupid celebrity gossip would disappear from TV in favor of cartoon reruns, kids doing science experiments, and cat videos from YouTube. The kids running Congress would decide that filibusters were boring and abolish them, and they’d make it a law that we all have to take turns on the slide and share cookies equally at snack time. Sure, we’d wind up with an International Candy and Pajamas Day, and a Take Your Puppy to School Day, and they’d probably come up with some mandate that adults have to take an hour out of each workday to have recess, but would that be so bad?

    1. Sounds like what I watch already on TV. Can we just add in OITNB and Game of Thrones? Then I’m totally down with the rest of it.

  5. Most of the stuff I could envy Kate for I’ve already got: health, home, family…. The burden of the princess thing not so much. Love that your girls managed to figure that out so early.

    1. Well, she did say Kate was lucky to be a princess. So I think they like the idea of princesses. They just don’t care about what she weighs or whether her roots are showing. I can live with that.

  8. So cute and actually quite a profound discussion, I feel. Just wait until they start reading the tabloid headlines while waiting on line at the supermarket. Good luck with that one.

  9. I love watching TV with my 7 year old, especially when commercials for “age defying” or other beauty products pop up. “No one needs that stuff” she says. My thoughts exactly. She tried to convince me to embrace my gray and let it grow out. I did it for several months and then realized the natural color, with gray looked just fine, but the residual colored parts looked horrendous. So I chumped out and colored it. Some example I am, right?

Comments are closed.